A quick refresher of shiny before we get started!

• Transforms static R code into interactive reports and dashboards
• No need to learn web development languages
  • CSS, HTML, JavaScript, JQuery
• free or low cost hosting options for shinyapps.io & shiny server
• Shiny is extendable and modular

Hi Portland!

• I’m Jasmine Dumas
  • Data Scientist and useR living in Connecticut
  • Work at Simple Finance based in Portland, OR
  • Author of ttbbeer and shinyLP
• Slides and Materials available on GitHub:
  • jasdumas/talks/PDX-R-user-group

I began buildng shiny apps in 2014

• Focused on creating a user friendly tool for biologists to analyze gene expression data
  • Worked towards understanding how non-R users would utilize the app

Why should you care about this?

• shiny apps are becoming more advanced and if we don’t incorporate user experience (UX) features, users may have difficulty using the app as intended
  • Especially non-technical users

What could go wrong when we don’t include user experience features?

Additional shiny add-on packages that increase usability

• shinyjs: Adds JavaScript operations
• shinydashboard: Create dashboards
  
• shinythemes: Alter the color and font
• shinyBS: Adds additional Twitter Bootstrap components to Shiny.
  • Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

New Zealand Tourism website

Tweet Analyzer

Twin Cities Bus

Hartford Connecticut Crime

Letsrun.com Shoe Database

Wikimedia Search Metrics Dashboard

A quote from an influential R Programmer…

Landing pages can enhance user experience

• Landing pages explain the app’s usage in a clear and concise manner - Sets up users for success!
• User success can be measured if the user can:
  • Use the application as intended, contact app maintainers for assistance, see examples, or sign up for a service or account

An example of a landing home page

I developed an R package that helps make landing home pages called shinyLP

• Adds even more Bootstrap components to make landing home pages for Shiny
• On CRAN and GitHub

jumbotron <- function(header , content, button = TRUE,  ...){

  button_label = c(...)

  if (button){
    HTML(paste0("<div class='jumbotron'>
                <h1> ", header, "</h1>
                <p>", content ,"</p>",
                "<p><a class='btn btn-primary btn-lg' button id='tabBut'>", button_label, "</a></p>
                </div>") )

  } else {
    HTML(paste0("<div class='jumbotron'>
                <h1> ", header, "</h1>
                <p>", content ,"</p>",
                "</div>") )
  }

}

Orange you glad I’m showing examples of shinyLP…

This shinyLP example is a-peeling…

Naval oranges prevent scurvy…